Ross was good at babbling. For a bit he and Mike had looked at each other, simply smiling and being nervous, and then Mike got him a beer and they sat together on the couch and Ross wanted to say how good he looked, how good he smelled. And then he wanted to ask him about track. He wanted to know why he never saw him in any classes and what his major was, and so he settled on that.
“I am going into chemical engineering.”
“Shit, I’m just an English major.”
“That’s important.”
“Not really,” Ross said, “And I’m beginning to see that.”
After the first beer, Ross stepped out to hit the restroom. Things were considerably quieter now, and he supposed all of his friends had gone home. All of the bathrooms at Saint Alban’s were old and ugly, startling white under their merciless fluorescent lights. Ross answered nature and was headed back to Mike when he heard a sound startling until he understood it, and horny as a virgin, he followed it. When Ross returned, he said, “I just came down the hall, and what do you think I saw? Jimmy Nespres with his pants down, fucking Connie while she bent over the landing.”
Mike bursts out laughing, but leapt up and took Ross’s hand.
“Is it still happening.”
“I think so, I mean, probably. I mean.—”
Mike pulled them out of the room and down the hall, and they watched, in the darkened hall, Jimmy, strangely doglike in his concentration and lust, mouth half open, eyes vacant, sweatshirt on the floor, his tee shirt half hanging over his ass, jeans in a pool about his feet, fucking Connie who was bent over the stairwell. And no one came out while she cried. No one came out while Jimmy grunted. Maybe everyone else was doing their own damage. Ross has wanted to stay and watch, He knew he was a pervert. The only reason he had come back was because he was coming back to Mike, but Mike looked slack jawed and transported too. Mike’s long arms with their powerful biceps covered in soft, or maybe rough blond hair, kept straying to his jeans where there was a visible bulge, and Ross’s heart was beating sharper. He was twitching with uncomfortable feelings he didn’t want to unfeel.
He was startled and embarrassed when Jimmy made a noise and he looked, looked away, looked to his friend, seeing the muscles in his neck, how his body froze, watching him come.
Mike took Ross by the cuff and led him back to his room. Ross wanted to kiss him. He wanted to touch Mike there, where his faded jeans darkened and the lump rose, where, when he sat with his legs apart, the denim masked and revealed that bulge. He wanted to touch him and make his face change, hear him moan, but instead Ross said, “Can you believe that?”
“I can totally believe it,” Mike said. “That’s just Jimmy being Jimmy.”
Well, that was right enough, and Ross knew it, but he preferred to be a prude a little longer and said, “Why did he do it here? I mean, he’s got a room. He’s next door to me.”
“You must get quite a show.”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, Connie probably didn’t want to go to Abelard, and maybe they couldn’t go to her dorm and they were both here so…. Who knows? It was hot, though.”
When they sat on the couch again they sat side by side so that their thighs were pressed together and Ross could smell Mike’s breath. They had another beer, quickly, and Ross wondered if Mike would kiss him. But, somehow, they had gotten to the subject of how to make a good soup, and then Ross found himself blinking and looked around the room from the sofa he sat on.
“You fell asleep,” Mike Wheeler said, grinning, but from the look on his face he had too.
“That was rude of me,” Ross said, laughing a little, and when he did, Mike did too, and when Mike laughed it made Ross laugh again, and then Ross said, “I’d better go. It must be so late.”
“You might as well stay,” Mike suggested. “I could get you a blanket.”
Ross hated staying at other people’s places. It was one of those things that made little sense when he had his own room not too far away. Staying at Macy’s, he always headed back home after a while. But when Mike asked him to stay, Ross said, “Yes.”
And because of whatever the two of them were feeling, and whatever this arrangement was, and because Mike must have known very well that Ross could simply go back to his room, they both stayed on the couch, curled on either side under the great blanket, and when, as he fell back asleep, Ross’s bare feet touched Mike Wheeler’s, he felt Mike’s press back. Ross was good at babbling. For a bit he and Mike had looked at each other, simply smiling and being nervous, and then Mike got him a beer and they sat together on the couch and Ross wanted to say how good he looked, how good he smelled. And then he wanted to ask him about track. He wanted to know why he never saw him in any classes and what his major was, and so he settled on that.
“I am going into chemical engineering.”
“Shit, I’m just an English major.”
“That’s important.”
“Not really,” Ross said, “And I’m beginning to see that.”
After the first beer, Ross stepped out to hit the restroom. Things were considerably quieter now, and he supposed all of his friends had gone home. All of the bathrooms at Saint Alban’s were old and ugly, startling white under their merciless fluorescent lights. Ross answered nature and was headed back to Mike when he heard a sound startling until he understood it, and horny as a virgin, he followed it. When Ross returned, he said, “I just came down the hall, and what do you think I saw? Jimmy Nespres with his pants down, fucking Connie while she bent over the landing.”
Mike bursts out laughing, but leapt up and took Ross’s hand.
“Is it still happening.”
“I think so, I mean, probably. I mean.—”
Mike pulled them out of the room and down the hall, and they watched, in the darkened hall, Jimmy, strangely doglike in his concentration and lust, mouth half open, eyes vacant, sweatshirt on the floor, his tee shirt half hanging over his ass, jeans in a pool about his feet, fucking Connie who was bent over the stairwell. And no one came out while she cried. No one came out while Jimmy grunted. Maybe everyone else was doing their own damage. Ross has wanted to stay and watch, He knew he was a pervert. The only reason he had come back was because he was coming back to Mike, but Mike looked slack jawed and transported too. Mike’s long arms with their powerful biceps covered in soft, or maybe rough blond hair, kept straying to his jeans where there was a visible bulge, and Ross’s heart was beating sharper. He was twitching with uncomfortable feelings he didn’t want to unfeel.
He was startled and embarrassed when Jimmy made a noise and he looked, looked away, looked to his friend, seeing the muscles in his neck, how his body froze, watching him come.
Mike took Ross by the cuff and led him back to his room. Ross wanted to kiss him. He wanted to touch Mike there, where his faded jeans darkened and the lump rose, where, when he sat with his legs apart, the denim masked and revealed that bulge. He wanted to touch him and make his face change, hear him moan, but instead Ross said, “Can you believe that?”
“I can totally believe it,” Mike said. “That’s just Jimmy being Jimmy.”
Well, that was right enough, and Ross knew it, but he preferred to be a prude a little longer and said, “Why did he do it here? I mean, he’s got a room. He’s next door to me.”
“You must get quite a show.”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, Connie probably didn’t want to go to Abelard, and maybe they couldn’t go to her dorm and they were both here so…. Who knows? It was hot, though.”
When they sat on the couch again they sat side by side so that their thighs were pressed together and Ross could smell Mike’s breath. They had another beer, quickly, and Ross wondered if Mike would kiss him. But, somehow, they had gotten to the subject of how to make a good soup, and then Ross found himself blinking and looked around the room from the sofa he sat on.
“You fell asleep,” Mike Wheeler said, grinning, but from the look on his face he had too.
“That was rude of me,” Ross said, laughing a little, and when he did, Mike did too, and when Mike laughed it made Ross laugh again, and then Ross said, “I’d better go. It must be so late.”
“You might as well stay,” Mike suggested. “I could get you a blanket.”
Ross hated staying at other people’s places. It was one of those things that made little sense when he had his own room not too far away. Staying at Macy’s, he always headed back home after a while. But when Mike asked him to stay, Ross said, “Yes.”
And because of whatever the two of them were feeling, and whatever this arrangement was, and because Mike must have known very well that Ross could simply go back to his room, they both stayed on the couch, curled on either side under the great blanket, and when, as he fell back asleep, Ross’s bare feet touched Mike Wheeler’s, he felt Mike’s press back.
When Morning came thy were scissored under the blanket and Ross thought about not getting up again, Mike was sprawled on his back, arms flung out, mouth open, and Mike Donofrio was asleep on the top bunk of the bed across the room.
Ross stirred, removing his legs from Mike’s, and sat on the sofa to put on his shoes and find his jacket. He shook Mike’s shoulder.
“Huh?” Mike said, looked fuzzy and Ross said, “I’m going back now.”
“Oh!” Mike said, softly, pushing himself up. “I’m glad you woke me. Let me walk you out.”
“I can find my way out.”
“Let me walk you out.”
Mike slipped on his shoes and said, “I’ve been in my clothes all night!” He had taken a swig of water and a breath mint, and now he led Ross through the strangely quiet Sunday morning hall. In the hallway, by the main door, Mike leaned against it and said, “I guess you’re doing the shame walk.”
“I hate that term,” Ross said, shaking his head. “And have you noticed, no one’s ever ashamed to make it?”
“I’m sure Connie isn’t.”
“No, Connie definitely isn’t.”
“Besides,” Ross said, “nothing happened. I mean, we saw things happening. But nothing happened to me.”
Mike was nodding, and grinning and suddenly he leaned forward, cradled Ross’s head and kissed him on the mouth. It was just as Ross’s mouth was learning to respond, savoring the taste of Mike’s peppermint breath, that he parted from Ross.
“Well, now something happened,” Mike said. “So get your shameful ass home.”
This early in the morning, the grass was still covered in frost, and Ross was savoring Mike’s kiss and wishing for more. The sun was rising high and yellow in a sky that hadn’t quite found its color when Ross reached Abelard Hall and went up the steps. As he came to the third floor he saw Andy Lagger, in his low hung boxers, his hair mussed, coming out of Flipper’s room. He looked more humbled than startled when he saw Ross.
“Hey, Ross.”
“Hi, Andy.”
“How’s it going?”
He did not expect conversation from the tall football player headed to the urinal who had so apparently stayed with Flipper last night.
“It’s… it’s good. I just got in.”
Andy grinned at him.
“Shame walk?”
“No!” Ross said. Then, “Not really. Maybe. Only I’m not ashamed.”
It sounded stupid to say, “And nothing really happened.”
He’d just made out with a boy who he’d played footsie with all night, and by Saint Alban’s standards that actually was kind of huge.
“Well,” Andy said, gripping Ross’s shoulder and hugging it as he strode to the restroom, “good for you, Ross. Good for you.”
Ross was heading to his room when Flipper in his brief’s intercepted him.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“That it would be nice to get to my bed before anyone else comes out?”
“That…. Andy stayed last night.”
“That’s your business. I mean, I guess shit is alright between you guys.”
“I don’t know what the fuck it is.”
“Well, he’s really nice, and built like a Greek statue, and I can totally understand it and when he comes out of the bathroom, you’re probably want to do whatever you’ve been doing, and I’m definitely going to want to sleep, so how ‘bout you tell me all about your feelings on our way to brunch?”
Lastly came Jimmy, who didn’t knock, but simply slipped into the room in his sleep pants and tank top, and sat in Ross’s chair, smoking a cigarette while Ross drifted off ,and then Jimmy crawled into bed beside his friend.
Ross stroked his hair and Jimmy said, “So, did you all have a good time?”
“We didn’t do anything!”
“I know you didn’t,” Jimmy said. But did you have a good time?”
Jimmy reached into his pocket, pulled out a wrapped chocolate and handed it to his friend.
Ross unwrapped it and ate it
“Yes. And he may or may not have kissed me.”
“Fucking look at you!” Jimmy laughed, pressing his back against Ross. They both lay in bed like siblings, laughing, and Ross wondered what it would be like to be Connie, to be bent over, the focus of Jimmy’s lust. He pushed the thought away before he got a boner.
“That Connie,” Ross started.
“She’s a wild bitch!” Jimmy said. “She’s excellent.”
They were well asleep when Flipper came in, and sat in the chair and started talking about Andy and how complicated things were.
“Things don’t sound that complicated,” Jimmy said. “It sounds like everything that happened around you two is complicated. But your actual shit doesn’t actually seem complicated.”
“Huh!” Flipper sighed, legs wide apart, putting his hand in his hair.
“You know Ross made the walk of shame?” Jimmy said.
“I saw,” Flipper said.
“And he made out with Mike Wheeler.”
“Get out! But it totally makes sense. Are you gonna do it again?”
“I don’t know,” Ross said, feeling quite shy. “But I do know I’m hungry and it’s time for brunch.”
“Maybe we’ll see Mr Wheeler,” Flipper said, standing up.
“Maybe we will,” Ross agreed.
“And maybe you’ll see Andy,” Jimmy said to Flipper.
“I doubt it. He’s getting ready to go fishing.”
Which he was, for even as the three of them were leaving for brunch with thoughts of second rate French Toast and watery scrambled eggs on their mind, Andy Lagger was on his way to Lake Lourde, and an hour from finding Noah Aukerman.
“You never go to bed,” Jimmy said as he entered Ross’s room.
“And aren’t you grateful for it,” said Ross.
He was sitting at his desk, but the computer was off and the room smelled of vinegar which Jimmy now saw had to do with the vinegar bottle on the table.
“What’s going on with that?”
“But you can see what’s going on.”
Ross had a coffee filter in one hand and kept dipping it in the vinegar and Jimmy though, well Ross is into voodoo and all that shit, and Ross was rubbing it all over his face and then, having done it, he did it again, and closed the bottle up, tossed away the old coffee filter and retired to his easy chair.
“I’m still listening,” he told Jimmy as he stretched out with his eyes closed.
“But what the hell else were you doing?”
“A facial. My pores are so big you could drive a truck through them. I look a hundred.”
“You look fine to me.”
“Thank you, friend, but I don’t look fine to me. Remind me to rinse this shit off in fifteen minutes. You staying for a while?”
“I could. You wanna beer?”
“A beer would be great?”
“Cigarette?”
“I’m out, so yes, that would be even better.”
Jimmy went down the hall to his room, and he could hear Flipper in his room, talking to Andy, probably, the boyfriend he was trying to keep. For about half a year, Flipper had something with Jimmy’s younger cousin, Russell. Jimmy hadn’t thought much of it. People were free to pursue whatever they wanted to and sex was sex. But that hadn’t quite worked out, or at least it had worked itself out into something else, and now Flipper and Andy were trying to make it work again.
When Jimmy returned with two beers and a pack of cigarettes, he placed one cigarette between Ross’s lips and a beer in is hands.
“So what makes your pores big?” Jimmy said. He had glanced himself in the mirror and been mildly horrified by what he’d seen.
“Drinking,” Ross said, taking a puff from the cigarette and ashing it in the little tray beside him, never opening his eyes. He sipped from his beer, “And smoking.”
Jimmy cackled and downed a great swig of beer.
“Maybe we’ll have to stop,” he suggested.
But Ross said, “Or maybe we’ll just have to keep rubbing our faces in vinegar.”
“I want to say we’re bad people,” Jimmy said, stretching out on Ross’s bed, “but you’re the good person that just hangs out with bad people. I’m the asshole.”
“What are we talking about now?”
“You pray and go to church. I wear myself out and then come back to this bed and pass out.”
“You live that life,” Ross was opening his eyes and then closing them, remembering he was supposed to be having something like a facial.
“I finally fucked that freshman girl tonight,” Jimmy said, his hand over his eyes. “She’d been wanting it. I could almost smell her cunt she was so hot for it, and I was getting so hard I finally just stuck it in her for relief.”
“Where’d it happen?”
“In the laundry room. Of Justin Hall.”
“Isn’t that...? That’s so.”
“No one was there. And it’s totally dark in that basement, and you can see if someone’s coming.”
“That would make me so nervous.”
“You’re the least nervous person I know.”
“I’m nervous all the time, and I’d definitely be nervous about that.”
“I dunno,” Jimmy shrugged and took a sip from his beer. “It actually excites me.”
“What’s the wildest place?”
“I’ve fucked?”
“Yes,” Ross said.
“Um….”
“Or wildest person?”
“Well, that’s hard to answer,” Jimmy said. “But once, back in G Falls for Christmas I was at Russell’s house, and he has an uncle—”
“Who’s not related to you.”
“Right. Right. And he is dating this old bitch, like she’s forty something and looks it. And she kept making eyes at me, and I was getting that feeling, you know, that tingle down in your balls, like your balls, your taint, and your asshole. You keep thinking about someone and you keep tingling down there and your dick just gets rock hard. Anyway, I plowed the fuck out of her on Christmas and maybe that’s an odd one.”
Ross, who had done so little, loved hearing Jimmy’s stories. Most of his life he had known such little sexual excitement, and Jimmy’s stories sparked something in him. And they were true, and they were endless.
“Family gatherings seem to be a good place for shit like this,” Jimmy Nespres said.
And because he knew Ross liked these stories he said, “At my cousin John’s wedding, I met this one hot to trot bridesmaid and fucked her in the church basement. She was so tight and wet and she let me come inside her. It turned out Russell was watching.”
“What?”
“He had come down to find me and find me he did, and then the little perv stayed for the show.”
Ross got up and put a cloth in the sink. He ran cold water over it and clapping it to his face said, “I wish I had some pot right now.”
“I think I might be able to help us out with that in a bit,” Jimmy said while Ross rinsed his face.
“There’s just something about sex, though,” Jimmy said. “I’ve been fucking since I was fourteen and sometimes it scares me a little.”
Ross stopped with the cloth pressed to his face.
“Scares you?”
“It’s like… Have you ever heard people say once you have it, you won’t be so crazy and horny? You’ll get over it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it seems like that’s true for most people. But not for me. I feel like I never get enough, like I’ll do anything for it. Sometimes I feel like my dick is in complete control and it’s exhausting. Sometimes I feel like I just keep getting dragged into shit and I’m always… what do drug addicts say? Chasing the dragon. Sometimes I just feel so worn out and so tired and I’m like, this is what a slut feels like. And then sometimes it’s like I hate every girl I’ve been with. Like…. They’re all sluts. But…. What does that make me?”
Ross sat down beside his skinny friend and wrapped an arm over his shoulder. Jimmy placed his head against Ross’s.
“Do you believe in Judgement Day?” Jimmy said.
“Yes,” Ross said. “I guess. I mean, I hope there will be. I’d like to think so.”
“But what would I say when I stand in front of God for the things I’ve done?”
“What things have you done?” Ross sat up straight.
“What did you do besides get laid. A lot. With people who wanted it. And tell me stories that turn me on?”
“Smoking and drinking and—”
“Oh, come the fuck on,” Ross said, almost impatiently. “There are real evils in this world, and really, the truth is I wonder where God is? What the fuck he’s up to. Why he doesn’t show up? Why do people who have so much keep getting and people who have so little lose what they have?”
“Are you allowed to say that about God?”
“I’ll say what the fuck I wish to say about God,” Ross said. “He has a lot to answer for. If there is a judgment day, I believe, I really believe he’ll be giving an account right along with the rest of us. It won’t be a one way street. He’s got a lot a to apologize for.”
